Sorrowsworn Morro
|rank_and_unit = |allegiance = }} Sorrowsworn Morro, known as the 'Copper Prince and 'The Impure', is the Primarch of the dreaded XVIth Legion - The Drowned. A caustic presence in the brotherhood of Primarchs, Morro only escaped censure by his gift for waging war in the most inhospitable climates. As sinister as Raktra Akarro of the VIIth, he was yet more capricious, beholden to no code but what he saw as the laws of survival. A longing for greater power and resentment at his disfigurement by a brother Primarch drove him to stray far beyond the bounds of Imperial law and morality. Behind the taciturn facade of the XVIth Legion his ambition ran rampant, leading them into gene-meddling and a hunt for tainted xenos weaponry. In joining Icarion, Morro secured the freedom to pursue still darker goals, shackling his dark soul ever more to the Ruinous Powers. History The Ferryman of Styx (Author's note; Thought to be scraps of an old Terran poem-allegory, dated 2nd Millennium.) Styx was a gas giant similar to the one where the XVIth had first proved the sheer extent of their mettle. In truth, their Primarch hailed from one of this world’s satellites, named Feneos and almost as inhospitable as the world it orbited. A long orbit around Styx plunged the globe into constant twilight for most of its long year, forcing the population to subsist on arboretum-grown plants and nutrient paste. The freezing climate that ensued was just as cruel a mistress: vast underground and underwater complexes were the only inhabitable spaces on Feneos. The people of Feneos referred to themselves as Styxians to signify their origins elsewhere, showing a degraded understanding that there was something beyond the world they knew. Yet it seems they took little hope from this. A belief that they had been cast upon this merciless rock ran through their society, and they could find little answer for their misery other than to endure it. Joy was almost absent from Feneos. There was little to savour in the landscape outside, even in the fleeting months of summer. Feneos was dominated by jagged, forbidding mountain ranges, bleak tundra and treacherous wetlands. The latter were home to ravenous amphibian predators, and worse things lurked in the depths. It was for fear of these that the floating stations were mobile and heavily armed, like waterborne versions of the great landcrawler cities found on Medusa. It was only with great reluctance and no small amount of weaponry that the Styxians ventured beyond their homes to harvest fish and crop seeds. Those who strayed outside or failed to properly guard their homes might fall victim to even fouler predators, for the Dark Eldar had chanced upon this world and found a rich supply of misery. They did not gorge upon it, but tended it much as a farmer does his crops. It might readily be expected, therefore, that when a Primarch came to this world, he saw the suffering of his kind and took up arms against their tormentors. Such is to woefully mistake the character of Sorrowsworn Morro. Of course, little was ever known of Morro, and much of that suppressed by order of the Primarch or his father. The clearest insights available to us are supplied by a remembrancer named Willym Koch, who vanished in the days before Icarion and his allies revealed their true allegiance. His work, the Apocrypha Hades, was recovered by agents of the Sigillite in the early years of the war, and only a few have been allowed to view it. It is still a mystery when and where Morro's pod came to land. The first clue to his existence came when a retrieval party, seeking fresh crops, stumbled across the corpses of several predators. Some had been partially eaten, displaying human bite marks, and all had been torn apart rather than killed with guns or blades. The humans were unwilling to investigate further, for curiosity and survival were deemed incompatible on this world. Reports filtered in from other settlements, both of slain monsters and missing people, and the Styxians understood they had found something to fear as much as to inspire hope. Three Terran years passed before Morro made contact properly, emerging as the final sun of Feneos’ cycle set. Approaching the city Phlegethon, he stalked through a portion which had been rendered uninhabitable in a leviathan attack. Detecting him by sonar, the guards reacted just as they had been taught to deal with anything that arrived without announcing itself as human and peaceful. Unfortunately for them, crude lasrifles, autoguns and flamers proved utterly insufficient. Efficiently and without remorse, Morro stormed the outer defences, taking hostages until the defenders laid down their weapons and begged for an end to the violence. Morro's first demand was that the polity's ruler be brought before him. The cities had long since done away with hereditary rulers and instead were governed by the hardest of the grim, military men and women upon whom they had come to depend. In this case, the individual in question was a man named Nitas. Having served for two Terran decades, he had finally met his match in the Primarch. This failing was enough for Morro to declare Nitos unworthy, a crime punishable only by death. Crushing the ruler's skull, he pronounced himself lord of Plegethon. Other titles followed, the Primarch leading soldiers through the dark, storming cities and demanding their fealty. Men did not go abroad in the times of dark, least of all with hostile intent when to compromise a city meant to risk its destruction. Morro was spoken of as a creature born of the seas, a man in whose veins flowed the blood of monsters. Like them, he could withstand the merciless seas, striking the seaborne cities from below. Either he got his surrender, or purged all who resisted along with their kin. To better wage his wars, Morro delved into the schematics and technological lore that had resisted the Styxians' attempts to comprehend it. He had no use for anything that would ease his people’s lives, but if it would make them stronger, there he could find value. He put this strength to use, culling the predators on land and taking to the seas to hunt the great beasts. Morro would brook no challenge to his rule of the planet, and the creatures stood in his way. With them gone, Morro could work further towards strengthening his hold. It is likely that, in his isolated youth, he had stumbled across ancient mining tunnels, for he soon deduced the purpose of the excavation machines he found among the schematics. These he ordered built, and set his subjects delving into the crust for more resources to feed his ambition. He imposed a ruthlessly utilitarian regime upon the Styxians; they were naught but a resource. None could be said to know their brooding master well, but the rumours held that he was restless, seeking broader horizons beyond the world he had found. Certainly he tolerated no resistance. When the city of Tartanlus refused to submit, Morro used his tunneling machines to break it open. Seizing the climate control facilities, he froze the denizens into submission. Once the survivors gave in, he took them as slaves and set them to work in the mines. If the Styxians had any inclination toward art before, they certainly lacked it now, save for poetry of a singularly morbid bent. Perhaps alone of the Primarchs, Morro coveted items of great value without apparent regard for their aesthetic or practical value. He did not adorn himself with these trinkets, but he hoarded them all the same. Koch seems to have believed it was more about depriving the Styxians and reminding them of his power over them. By his decree they knew no happiness, and they could do nothing to contest that decree. Such transgressions, however, were nothing to the most dreadful way in which Morro used his people. Exactly when Morro first encountered the Dark Eldar is not known; early, it is thought, for Koch found accounts in which Morro scoured cities with a gun that spat cold fire and a blade of pitted bone. Regardless, he had did see them merely as foes or obstacles, and he coveted their weapons. For all the industry he fostered, he found little to rival the weapons he claimed from alien hands. A hunting party of Dark Eldar came to Feneos, Morro was partway through his conquests. When word came of them moving toward his territory, he went to intercept them - but not to kill. Instead, in an act which would be kept secret for well over a century, Morro struck a sinister bargain with the xenos. For a cache of weaponry and an agreement that they would not trespass on his domain, he gifted them a tithe of his subjects. A Primarch sold his people into an existence of torment which could only end in death. We do not know how many times this bargain was repeated, but repeated it was, until outsiders broke the cycle. Rough and Muddled Waters Koch's account falters here, not from a lack of information available to him, but because elements have been excised by other hands. A few facts are preserved; a Legiones Astartes fleet tracked a Dark Eldar raiding force to the orbit of Styx, where they destroyed the alien craft. Then they turned to the moon beneath them, raking it with auspex scans which returned unusual energy signatures and primitive vox-communications. In those communications they heard references to a man, a warrior who could never be a mortal man. Deeming themselves out of their depth, they transmitted their suspicions to the nearest fleets, and those missives brought two Primarchs, one of them Icarion. The truth was soon outed, and Morro's death prevented only by Icarion. Whispers take the place of fact at this time, although the claim is often repeated that Morro was brought before the Emperor in chains. While Morro claimed that he no longer had need of Styx and its miserable satellite, there were many who maintained that the Emperor stripped him of his fief. The truth was that Feneos could not provide the quantity of aspirants that Morro desired, and while it initially supplied the core of the Legion's strength, he quickly claimed recruitment worlds elsewhere. We can surmise that the Emperor saw little point in educating Morro in matters of governance or politics; the lessons were strictly military. In these at least, Morro acquitted himself, and in time was granted overlordship of his Legion, operating under the oversight of Pionus Santor. It was hoped by many that Pionus' noble spirit would prove a potent example to his brother, and that Morro would in time grow into his station. Yet while Morro learned to respect Pionus' prowess, there was little warmth between them. If the Drowned had expected their Primarch would gather the fleets and wage war with his entire Legion at his back, they too were disappointed. With cold calculation he deemed the current system fit for his purposes, seeing how the Scions had adopted something similar, so long as his sons submitted completely to his rule. Hennasohn repeatedly petitioned him to unite the XVIth and fulfil the promise Hennasohn had made to his brothers so long ago. Morro’s response, after a decade, was to effectively exile the old Legion Master at the head of his own fleet. The Legion's character turned still more dour; the worlds Morro deemed worthy of feeding his Legion were invariably harsh places to live, and bred men who knew no cheer. All of those who joined the Drowned showed an unbending loyalty to their Primarch, as did many of their older brothers. If this seems strange, then we must remember that the XVIth had never been a large Legion, and Morro’s tenure ended that era of stunted growth. Moreover, ill-favoured as he was, the Primarch won sufficient victories to finally draw notice to his Legion. Koch surmised from the words of Monarchs and senior captains that Morro had not so much refused to engage with his Legion as opted to bide his time, not overtly remoulding it but ensuring that his influence seeped into its every fibre. The XVIth's plate became ocean blue-green and copper, and the custom of taking a Styxian name upon ascension became commonplace. In 919.M30, Morro summoned the overwhelming majority of the Drowned for a campaign against the abhuman Ghrend. The effect on morale, even among such a grim brotherhood as this, was electrifying. From this point on, the Drowned's “tendrils” would be fewer and larger. Yet there were those who did not receive the call, most notably Hennasohn. The old Legion Master was left isolated, campaigning beside the Apostles of War. Soon that Legion would undergo their own great change when their Primarch was found. Gwalchavad would keep Hennasohn close for a time, an act of beneficence, but one which would ultimately bring terrible consequences for both sides. In the short term, discord between Gwalchavad and Morro would be the result in the wake of the near-disaster at Nox. When violence loomed between the Legions and the isolated magos of Abyssii, Morro had seen a chance to gain glory and power much as K'awil had on Lasaris. When Alexandros negotiated an end to the standoff, Morro made little effort to hide his resentment and disgust that a "meekling" diplomat was so highly praised. He made some efforts to ingratiate himself with his brothers, but here too his own nature would foil him. In an episode which was widely covered up, Morro cheated against a brother in a game of Regicide. Arguing that it proved his philosophy - that war recognised no notion of fair play, and neither should the Emperor's armies - tensions that had simmered for some time abruptly came to the boil, and two Primarchs came to blows in earnest. When it became clear that Morro was fighting not simply to win, but to maim or worse, Gwalchavad stepped in. In the ensuing struggle, he severed Morro's forearm, a wound that even a Primarch's body would not heal entirely. A saner man might have submitted to the attentions of the medicae present. Morro, however, stormed from the ship, spitting curses as he went. The Drowned departed almost immediately after the Copper Prince was aboard his flagship. In the hands of his apothecaries, Morro learned the limits of what his physiology could overcome. An augmetic hand was crafted by his artificers, but the injury seems to have sown especially bitter fruit in his psyche. Perhaps it was a factor in the gene-meddling to which Morro had his apothecaries devote so much of their energies. Morro was brought to heel by Pionus and Icarion a few months later, and he was sufficiently contrite that his life was again spared. However, he was to labour under Icarion's watchful eyes for a further five years, and his Legion would spend a further decade being observed by a Legio Custodes detachment led by Prefect Sareic Veron. That the watchers found nothing to concern them did nothing to banish the pall of suspicion that hung over the Primarch, and it extended to the Legion during this time. Several XVIth fleets and their leading councils found themselves at pains to ensure their good standing was not tarnished by association. There was no such effort by the Copper Prince to rehabilitate his reputation. Approximately thirty years before the Qarith Triumph, Morro acquired a new Gloriana-class ship for his fleet. The circumstances are deeply mysterious - normally the construction of such prestigious vessels was an occasion for rejoicing among the Mechanicum, and in any case difficult to hide - and the acquisition drew condemnation from several other Legions. Morro ensured that attention was lavished upon the vessel, ensuring that like his flagship, it far outclassed most vessels of its kind. He seems to have taken a cruel delight in how this angered some of his brothers, although the reason for their disquiet remains unknown. In his relations with other Legions, Morro had always made it clear that he would not tolerate sympathy. He rather welcomed the cold treatment he now received from Pionus Santor - mild when compared to the Crimson Lions and Iron Bears, who refused to have anything to do with the Drowned. He sought out only the company of Raktra, Ixiptatlan and Yucahu. Kozja Darzalas he kept in contact with out of necessity; Kozja's status as prime advocate for gene-seed manipulation shielded Morro from attention and criticism, and Morro searched incessantly for a means to repair his infirmity. Personality Wargear *''Agoniser Tendrils'' - At the beginning of their macabre evolution, the Tendrils were a pair of multiple-tailed and savagely bladed whips, over which Morro's implants leant him preternatural control. It is theorised that Uriel Rakarth had a hand in their design, as they epitomised cruelty in the way that the Drukhari have made a hallmark of their weapons. Nonetheless, the Tendrils were a more potent set of weapons than perhaps any wielded by that race. *''The Deeping Plate'' - Based on the armour fashioned for Morro on Feneos, the Deeping Plate integrated Martian power armour technology with the brute utilitarianism and archeotech that had protected Morro against the worst hazards of his homeworld. Morro was never satisfied with his raiment, and it was continuously overhauled to endure the ravages of both ocean and void. *''Ferryman's Toll'' - It is unknown how or why Morro came to favour this style of weapon, but it was made to his specifications. Shaped like a traditional scimitar, but rather than a gentle, inwardly curving blade, the shotel curves outward, with the cutting edge on the inside of the blade. Morro can wield it with a speed that belies its size, and can easily bring down the guard of a shielded foe, each strike releasing a blast of radiant light. *'Plasma & Rad Grenades' Category:M